Lodi council limits developer to 9 units

LODI - A Lodi developer left Wednesday's City Council meeting "flabbergasted" after the council refused his request to build 12 town homes at 2110 Tienda Drive.

Keith Reid

LODI - A Lodi developer left Wednesday's City Council meeting "flabbergasted" after the council refused his request to build 12 town homes at 2110 Tienda Drive.

With a 3-2 vote, the council did allow for developer John Giannoni to build nine town homes on the 0.82-acre lot north of Kettleman Lane, with the majority worried that 12 units on the small lot is too many to squeeze in among a neighborhood of single-family homes.

Mayor Joanne Mounce said the project reminds her of the East Side apartment complexes that have become run-down in the "deteriorated neighborhood" where she lives.

Thirty-eight residents in a six-block radius of Tienda Drive also opposed the 12-unit proposal via a petition. Mounce said her understanding is that they would be OK with nine.

"The property was originally zoned for nine units," Mounce said. "That's what that community has known and what it has expected."

Giannoni expected something else and said he cannot financially make a nine-unit project pencil out. He told the council he was fully within his rights to request 12 units and said he did so under the strict guidelines set out in Lodi's Growth Management Plan, which allows for such a project under its 2 percent annual growth cap.

"I've been developing real estate since 1978, and I've never been more ashamed of a City Council," he said, calling its decision one that will hinder the local economy and hurt job creation. "What right do they have to tell me I can't do what I want to with my land? All I'm doing is copying the city's own guidelines. Now they're telling me I can't do it?"

The city's management plan allows city officials to allocate a number of annual residential units that fit low-density, medium-density and high-density levels.

City Manager Rad Bartlam said no developer has asked for an allocation in the past six years, and he thought Giannoni's proposal met the requirements.

Bartlam said the city is at a point where it is eager to see new development. Very few homes have been built since the housing collapse hit in 2007.

Giannoni repeatedly said he was being discriminated against in being denied his proposal and refused to answer the council's questions or go into detail regarding his ultimate plans for his land.

He said later the 1,700- to 2,100-square-foot units would fit well in the community, and he planned to live in one himself. He plans to sell the others.

Mounce said she would have liked to hear Giannoni give a more complete description of his project idea. She thought a respectful discussion over how the two sides could come to a compromise would have been more productive.

"He didn't even want to answer a question of if he planned to rent the units or sell them to homeowners," she said.

Councilman Larry Hansen and Phil Katzakian both voted against reducing the project to nine units. They both said the council had an obligation to move the project along as a medium-density project and allow the Planning Commission and development design review panels to determine how many homes should be built there.

"I think we have a process, and I think we should let this go through the process," Hansen said.

Giannoni said he doesn't know where he will go from here.

"I don't know. Maybe they'll hear from my lawyers and I'll come back and propose a 20-unit project," he said.